Gone with the Wind has generated interest in every aspect of its
production. Yet one crucial aspect has never been fully understood
or appreciated--the vital shaping role played by executive producer
David O. Selznick.
In this book, Alan David Vertrees challenges the popular image
of Selznick as a megalomaniacal meddler whose hiring and firing of
directors and screenwriters created a patchwork film that succeeded
despite his interference. Drawing on ten years of research in the
Selznick archives, and examining the screenplay's successive
drafts, dramatic continuity designs and "storyboard" sketches (many
of which are reproduced here), and production correspondence and
memoranda, Vertrees interprets the producer's actions as
manipulation, not indecision, establishing Selznick's "vision" as
the guiding intelligence behind the film's success.
In his drive to create a cinematic monument, Selznick also
reformed many key facets of studio filmmaking, inventing jobs such
as "production designer" (inaugurated by William Cameron Menzies),
which persist today. This book thus adds an important chapter to
the story of classical Hollywood cinema and the making of the film
that has been lauded variously as the "Sistine Chapel of movies"
and the "single most beloved entertainment ever produced."
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